Duke Special

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Duke Special is an artist aptly named. Dynamic, musically ambitious & bracingly eccentric, with his inimitable style and lush musicality. Hailing from Belfast with a sound that is self-confessed “hobo-chic”, Duke Special - AKA the endlessly inventive Peter Wilson - is once heard, never forgotten. Blissfully at home in his own alluring genre of beautifully bruised romanticism, Duke Special inhabits a world unlike any other - a world filled with vaudeville-esque sensibility, sing-a-longs and addictive melodies

So far, 2011 has proved to be another interesting and busy year, starting with presenting a TV documentary for RTE in Ireland on the life and times of 50s megastar Ruby Murray. This was broadcast in January, and accompanied by 2 orchestral concerts in Dublin and Cork, showcasing Duke’s interpretations of Ruby’s songs. He also released a charity single of recordings of 3 of Duke’s favourite Ruby songs, donating all the profits to the Irish charity Depaul Ireland (www.depaulireland.org).

The next exciting and ambitious project was a show commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for their exhibition on the photographers Stieglitz, Steichen, and Strand. Duke was invited to write a series of original songs based on the inspirational photographs featured in the exhibition, which he has said is artistically one of the most exciting things he has ever done. He then performed the songs to a backdrop of the photographs, in the Metropolitan Museum’s Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium accompanied by members of the Orchestre de Chambre Miniature, a string quartet founded by violinist Olivier Manchon from Clare and the Reasons.
While in the USA he also performed a series of concerts in fans’ houses, as well as shows in Washington DC and Philadelphia.

Duke Special’s immense creative talents have seen him involved in projects as diverse as writing the theme tune for Sesame Tree (the Northern Ireland edition of Sesame Street where he also got to sing with The Muppets) to writing the music for and appearing in Deborah Warner’s critically acclaimed 2009 production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children at London’s National Theatre. He then recorded an album of the twelve songs from the play, which was to form part of his ambitious project for 2010 - the release of a 3 CD box-set, The Stage, A Book & The Silver Screen. This box-set also included a 5-track EP Called Huckleberry Finn, the first ever recording of an unfinished musical written by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson based on the Mark Twain classic, and the album The Silent World of Hector Mann, featuring 12 songs based on The Book of Illusions by contemporary American author Paul Auster.

Duke is frequently to be found out on the road bringing his inimitable live show to appreciative audiences across the world. As well as extensive tours of the UK, Ireland and Europe, live highlights of the past few years include curating and headlining his very own one-day festival, DUKEBOX in Custom House Square in Belfast, hosting a night at the Belfast Film Festival where he performed as a puppet of himself, performing his songs accompanied by 60-piece orchestras in Dublin and Belfast, and numerous festival appearances,
including Glastonbury, Latitude, Greenbelt, Electric Picnic and Oxygen.
Not forgetting headline shows in New York and Washington, Dubai, and supporting the likes of Paolo Nutini in Paris, Duffy in Copenhagen and Snow Patrol in Belfast. He was also invited by the British Council in 2010 to perform at the UK Pavilion in Shanghai, China, as part of the British Expo.

Duke Special is a fervent performer who harks back to a pre-rock ’n’ roll era, with dashes of Gershwin and orchestral swing, all tinged with a Northern Irish lilt and poetic lyrics that could feature in a modern-day fairytale; the perfect balance of old and new - boasting the appeal of a three-minute pop song with the incessant charm of an old-school music hall.

www.dukespecial.com

Bitter Ruin

A couple take to the stage dressed for an up-market 1920s funeral. Ben cradles an acoustic guitar as Georgia stalks briefly around the stage in her stockinged feet. They break suddenly into something murderously intense, bellowing and delicately melodic with dramatic, jarring shifts of tone and rhythm. Bitter Ruin are not like anything you've seen before. The songs are intricately plotted duets, mostly about love gone varying degrees of horribly wrong. Often they build from twinkling to choppy, percussive, stomping choruses or blisteringly fast call-and-response. Georgia's vocal delivery ranges from a witchy cackle to full-throated blues, Ben’s from a gentle croon to a gritty roar. Brazen theatrics are the other half of the equation, when not throwing carnival shapes the two are perched about the stage belting lines out in each other's faces with an intensity verging on the frightening. If someone feels like writing the missing scenes, a graveyard knife-fight over an incestuous love affair would be about right...weird, unique, and highly recommended.

Bitter Ruin have toured worldwide with the likes of The Dresden Dolls and Amanda Palmer solo, Melissa Auf Der Maur (Smashing Pumpkins) and The Tiger Lillies. Rave reviews in national press, sell out tours and support from a few British celebrities such as Sandman author Neil Gaiman and BBC presenters Mitch Benn and Tom Robinson back up all claims that this duo will deliver a first class show.

“Anyone who doesn`t enjoy their performance is either deaf or dead. Book them. Listen to them. Get their CD. Don`t miss out. Really, just don`t."

“Bitter Ruin are original, uncompromising and will reignite your faith in music” – THE SUN, Newspaper